


Two Cups and Counting

by danger_floof



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bucky Barnes is not a morning person, F/M, Finger guns, Fluff and Humor, Minor Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Sandwiches, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, That's not a euphemism they're just dorks, There is a lot of coffee in this considering it's not a coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-07 04:49:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17359280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danger_floof/pseuds/danger_floof
Summary: Everyone has a soulmark, the first words that their soulmate will ever say to them permanently printed on their skin. It's a foolproof system as long as everyone, you know ... talks.If one of you is a morning person, and the other can't form a sentence until they've had at least three cups of coffee? That might be a problem.





	1. Chapter 1

“And this is the common area,” Pepper Potts’ voice carols from the hall outside the kitchen at stupid o’clock in the morning. “TV room, game room, this room is always a giant pillow fort for some reason …”

Bucky would groan if he had the energy. He heard the elevator ding a minute ago, but assumed it was just Stark. Stark has a lot of flaws, but at least he’s not talkative in the morning. 

Potts has very few flaws, but a tendency to be chirpy before breakfast is definitely one. “There’s a kitchen through here,” he hears her continue, and hunches a little further. “We keep it stocked with snacks, coffee and so on. Please help yourselves anytime.” She comes in, a crisp white figure in his left periphery, trailed by whoever it is she’s showing around. Looking directly at people is far too much effort this early in the morning, so all he gets is a vague impression of two figures with long hair. Could be women. Then again, Bucky gets called ‘ma’am’ sometimes when his hair’s down.

“Morning, Pepper,” Steve says from his seat on the other side of the island. He’s already been for a run and is now eating a healthy veggie omelette, with his eyes fully open, because he is a punk. He kicks Bucky under the table. Bucky just growls and curls over his bowl of Cocoa Puffs.

One of the figures makes a surprised sort of squeaking sound. Okay, that one is definitely a woman.

Potts laughs. “As you can see, some of the team like to eat in here as well. Guys, this is Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis. They’re going to be working with Tony in the lab. Jane, Darcy, this is Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.”

“We know,” the squeaky one says, squeakily.

“Darce!” the other one hisses, then raises her voice again. “It’s nice to meet you both. Sorry about Darcy. She has no chill.”

“Tony says I have none either,” Steve says, sounding amused. “Actually, he says none of us do. Welcome to the team, I’m sure you’ll fit in nicely.” There’s a brief silence and he kicks Bucky again, harder.

Bucky flaps a hand vaguely in their direction and makes a noise he knows doesn’t resemble any form of speech.

“He’s not a morning person,” Steve says apologetically.

“Right, well, we’ll leave you alone then,” Pepper says. “If you two want to come back this way, I’ll show you the gym …”

 _Yes,_ Bucky thinks, _yes, thank merciful God, no more talking._

Twenty minutes and two cups of coffee later, he pulls his hair back and stretches. The world is in focus and his brain is finally starting to function normally. “Hey,” he says suddenly, “what was the deal with those dames? None of Stark’s other minions have access to this floor.”

Steve, who has damn near a century of experience with Bucky in the morning, just rolls his eyes and turns a page in his book. “I don’t know, Buck,” he says. “Maybe if you’da talked to them like a normal human being, you coulda asked.”

That doesn’t deserve a response. There is no humanity before coffee, and the punk knows it.

“You might know what you missed, too,” Steve adds slyly.

“”Missed?” Bucky sits up, alert. He knows a threat wouldn’t have gotten by him — the Soldier operates on a whole other set of circuits unrelated to his humanity — but whatever else he missed must be pretty important for Steve to bring it up. “What’d I miss?”

Steve stretches and puts his bowl in the dishwasher before he answers. “Your appointment with Tony is this afternoon, right? For arm maintenance?”

Bucky nods, narrowing his eyes with suspicion.

Steve smirks. “Then you’ll find out. Wanna spar first?”

“You mean do I wanna punch that smug look right off your face?” Bucky stands up and knocks back the rest of his coffee. “Thought you’d never ask.”

***

Two hours later, showered, shaved, and with the remains of a shiner from a lucky elbow, Bucky punches his entry code into the door of Stark’s lab. Steve’s tagging along today, the way he does sometimes. At first it was stiff and awkward between him and Tony, but Bucky thinks they’ve worn the sharp edges off each other now.

He appreciates that Steve was willing to put up with it at first, to support him. Today, though, he doesn’t particularly need support. He thinks Steve is just here to see the show when Bucky finds out whatever it was he ‘missed.’

“Hiya, Capsicle. Terminator,” Stark says. He’s got welding goggles on, but no sleeves. Seems dangerous, but then, who is Bucky to lecture other people about the proper care and keeping of their arms. 

“Stahk, I’m back,” he says instead, in his worst Bavarian accent. Steve rolls his eyes. He thinks that movie is dumb, which it is, but that’s why Bucky loves it.

Stark flashes him a grin. “I’ll be right with you. I just have to finish up helping some people fix their frankly pathetic attempts at machine maintenance.” He raises his voice slightly on the last part, looking past Bucky’s shoulder.

“I heard that!” a female voice snaps from behind him. It’s flattened and metallic from the intercom, but recognizably the squeaky girl from this morning. She doesn’t sound squeaky now; actually she’s got a nice voice, a little husky. “Your face is frankly pathetic!”

“That’s not what People Magazine says, Short Stack!” Tony yells back, and fires up the welding torch again.

The girl growls.

Bucky turns around. What was formerly an opaque wall on the left side of the lab is now glass, opening into another lab. It’s full of half-assembled machines and other science stuff, probably. That would normally interest him, but right now all he can really see is the girl. She’s standing right up against the glass, hands on her hips, glaring at Tony through dark-rimmed glasses. She’s got lush red lips, curly dark hair, and curves like he hasn’t seen since 1942.

He can’t _believe_ he didn’t talk to her this morning. He racks his brain, but can’t even remember her name.

After a much-too-short second, he remembers how his ma raised him and picks his jaw up off the floor. Not that it matters, she hasn’t even looked at him yet. Too busy trying to set Stark on fire with her mind. He sympathizes.

 _Say something to her,_ he tells himself. _Something clever. You used to be good at this._

“Done,” Tony says before Bucky’s mouth will cooperate. “And you’re welcome, Lewis. Come on, Robocop, your turn.”

Bucky doesn’t want to turn away, but he can’t think of a good excuse not to. He settles reluctantly on the stool Stark points him to.

Wow, he mouths at Steve, cutting his eyes toward the window.

“Told you,” Steve says, not even bothering to keep his voice down. He tosses a handful of popcorn into his mouth. Where it even came from, Bucky doesn’t know. Steve is spending way too much time with Natasha.

“JARVIS, let’s have something from this century for our favorite old men,” Tony says. He likes to work to music, and they’ve been working their way slowly forward in time from the thirties ever since Bucky first came in, gun-shy and tense, his left hand glitching uncontrollably. They do maintenance every other week, now, and Tony keeps threatening to start making improvements.

A beat comes on, one of the loud, fast songs that Bucky is starting to almost like. This one’s not bad at all, for example: it’s not the kind of thing you could do the Charleston to, but it’s fast and peppy and he can at least imagine wanting to dance to it. 

“She shot me, she shot me, BANG BANG she shot me," a man sings, and Bucky uses his free hand to give Tony the finger. All the jokes about shooting got old about five seconds after they started, but trust a Stark to run a lame gag into the ground. Tony just grins and reaches for his tools. 

As he opens the access panel above Bucky’s wrist, Bucky sneaks a glance at the girl. The music must be playing in the next room too, because she’s bopping along as she screws together some kind of equipment.

Normally, arm maintenance brings him out in a cold sweat, even though he knows intellectually that he’s safe. Something about the noise of the drill, and about being opened up like that … it just gives him the heebie-jeebies. Now, though, he’s barely even aware of it. He’s too busy watching the girl. The beat breaks into a new rhythm, and she pulls back from the machine and throws her whole body into it, hips shimmying and head nodding. She twirls the screwdriver around her fingers, then holds it like a gun and pretends to shoot the machine every time the singer says BANG.

An enthusiastic twirl brings her around to face him, and she catches his eye. Her eyebrows rise. Bucky lifts one corner of his mouth in a wry you-got-me smile. She smiles back, the curve of those red lips making him dizzier than any elbow to the head, and points the screwdriver at him.

“BANG BANG, she got me,” the singer crows. Bucky claps his free hand to his chest, miming a hit. Then, before he can think too hard about it, he sticks out two fingers and ‘shoots’ her back on cue, BANG BANG.

She tips her head back and laughs, and he can’t even hear it but he feels it in his whole body anyway.

The song ends, and he turns back to see Steve and Tony staring at him. “What?”

Tony shakes his head. He’s got on a headband with some kind of magnifying eyepiece that makes one eye look creepily huge. “I always thought they were exaggerating that.”

“Who was exaggerating what?”

“Nah,” Steve says like Bucky’s not even there. He sounds resigned. “If anything, they were underselling it. I once saw him make a date with a French Resistance fighter through a pile of rubble. That had fallen. On him.”

“Oh — that.” Bucky flushes, resisting the urge to turn and look back at the girl. It’s true but it ain’t him anymore, not since … and Steve _knows_ that, dammit.

“How?” Tony asks, with what sounds for all the world like professional curiosity.

Steve shrugs. “Got me. I didn’t see a thing. One minute he’s under a building, next minute it’s _‘Okay, doll, pick you up at eight.’_ ”

They both turn to look at Bucky. He’d leave the room, but his arm is in about eighty pieces all over the work table. This is why he hates maintenance day. 

“Morse code,” he finally admits, and Stark laughs so hard it’s several minutes before they get back to the arm.

When they finally do, the speakers kick on again and a man’s voice says, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mambo #5.” Another peppy beat comes on, one Bucky recognizes. The mambo was just coming into fashion when he shipped out, though he doesn’t think he’s ever heard this song.

Tony’s head comes up. “What the hell, JARVIS, I said this century.”

“A request from Miss Lewis, sir,” JARVIS says. “She said it was, quote, thematically appropriate.”

Tony starts laughing again. Bucky’s not sure why until the chorus starts, the singer crooning one woman’s name after another. Too late, he remembers the intercom. _Shit. Some goddamn covert operative I am._

He whips around to look at the girl — Miss Lewis. He expected her to look mad, but she’s laughing too. When their eyes meet, she winks. Then she drops onto her back, screwdriver still in hand, and slides under the machine she was working on.

Bucky watches the soles of her tennis shoes tap to the beat while Tony puts him back together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bucky I write is frequently me, but never more so than in this fic. **There is no humanity before caffeine, people.**
> 
> I can't confirm or deny whether this is based on a true story ... unless you're the attractive guy who kept sitting across from me at breakfast in that hostel in Warsaw, in which case, call me. (In the afternoon.)
> 
> The songs mentioned are "Bang Bang" by K'naan and of course the 1999 smash hit "Mambo #5" by Lou Bega.
> 
> Last but not least, you all probably know this already since you read WinterShock, but the soulmarks in this story are based on amusewithaview's soulmate AU series, which is delightful and fills me with joy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bucky fails to track down the girl in the lab, and we all learn some important facts about sandwiches.
> 
> Content warning for a brief mention of Bucky's PTSD.

Bucky plans to go find the girl — Lewis — right away and see how he can do with no window between them. But that day he has plans with Steve, and the rest of the week is a bad one. They take a mission in a Polish town he didn’t know he’d ever been to, but as soon as he sees its blocky concrete skyline he can’t remember what year it is, and when Steve’s voice comes through his earpiece he answers in Russian, and long story short, it all goes to hell.

It’s a minor break, so he only wakes up screaming for a couple of nights. That fucks up his sleep cycle for longer, though, and puts him in a bad place to try and talk to anyone, much less a girl he wants to actually like him.

Two weeks after the day in the lab, he’s only just clawed his way out of bed when he hears a familiar husky voice coming down the hall towards the common kitchen. “… and that’s when it exploded,” Lewis is saying, a giggle in her voice. “He’s still finding glitter in the suit.”

Bucky recognizes the story as the latest in an ongoing prank war with Stark that started sometime while he was … gone. He doesn’t have the energy to wonder who she’s telling, but a booming laugh answers the question: Thor’s back.

Lewis appears in the doorway first. After her comes another woman, probably her scientist buddy from the first day, attached at the hip with a beaming Thor. _Huh, that’s why they have access to this floor,_ he thinks dully in some far corner of his brain.

“Ah, Bucky!” Thor booms, seeing him. Bucky likes the guy, he really does, so he only glares a little. As usual, Thor is unfazed. In the early days, when everyone else was tiptoeing around and treating Bucky like an unexploded bomb, Thor was kind and jolly and not careful at all. What’s a lightning god got to fear from a guy with a metal arm?

Bucky was — hell, some days still is — pathetically grateful to be around someone who doesn’t have to be afraid of him.

“Have you met my soulmate, the Lady Jane?” Thor says now. “And Lady Darcy, her lightning sister?”

Darcy. Her name is Darcy. She’s smiling at him.

Bucky tries to smile back. He really, really does. But he spent last night staring at the ceiling until it turned pink with sunrise. His head feels like concrete and his eyes feel like they’ve been scoured with sand. All he can manage is a nod and a blurry stare somewhere past her head.

“Are you well?” Thor asks more quietly, frowning. Bucky probably looks like hell. He didn’t exactly get dolled up before he stumbled down here.

He takes a long drink of coffee and tries to remember words. “Bad night,” he forces out finally, and winces at the sound of his own voice. Jesus, he sounds like he’s been gargling cheese graters.

Thor just nods, because he’s big and strong and jolly, not dumb. He claps Bucky on the shoulder with a faint clang and turns back to the ladies. “Well, my love, what would you like for lunch?” he says. “I must confess I’ve missed Midgardian grilled cheese, but I’m sure there are many options.”

To Bucky’s eternal relief and gratitude, both women know how to take a hint. They set up a sandwich assembly line at the far end of the counter and leave a clear path between him and the coffee maker.

For a while he lets their voices just wash over him in a rush of soothing white noise. Halfway through cup #3, his brain comes online enough to tune into what they’re saying.

“Because tomatoes are an abomination, Janey,” Lewis — Darcy — is saying. Her voice is muffled. Bucky shoots a sidelong glance over and sees that she’s talking with her mouth full, cheeks puffed out. He lets his mouth curve up, a little, on the side they can’t see. She swallows and continues more clearly: “A slimy, tasteless abomination that makes the bread all soggy.”

Her friend, whose name he’s now 96% sure is Jane, nods gravely and takes a bite of her own sandwich. With tomatoes on it, he notices. Unlike Darcy, she chews and swallows before speaking. “I acknowledge the point you’re trying to make,” she says. “I just don’t think I can take advice on appropriate toppings from someone who once put avocado on a peanut butter sandwich.”

“Hey!” Darcy points across the counter emphatically with the corner of her sandwich. Bucky thinks back to the screwdriver. Lewis might be a girl who likes her props. “A peanut butter sandwich is a whole different animal. Besides, I’m a millennial. I’m contractually obligated to put avocado on everything.”

To his own surprise, Bucky huffs a laugh. Darcy shoots him a grin, but then turns back without trying to bring him into the conversation. He might have to marry this girl.

“Okay,” she says to Jane, “If you’re going to be a philistine about sandwich toppings, maybe we should revisit the original Sandwich Question.” He doesn’t know how she does it, but he swears he can hear the capital letters.

Jane groans. “Darce, not this again.”

“Hey, come on, Thor wasn’t here when the chart was making the rounds.” There’s a brief silence. He sneaks a peek at her. She’s holding her sandwich in one hand while she thumbs her phone with the other. Her typing is fast and smooth, not faltering even when she turns her head to take a bite. Finally she turns the phone and pushes it across the counter to Thor.

“Sandwich alignment chart,” he reads, sounding as puzzled as Bucky feels. “This is to settle the question of what is truly a sandwich?”

“Exactly. Now me, I’m into radical sandwich anarchy.” Darcy reaches across to tap the screen. “Anything between two layers of bread-like substance is a sandwich. I think you’ll agree, big guy, that next to grilled cheese, Pop Tarts are the most superior type of sandwich.”

_Pastrami on rye,_ Bucky thinks, and then, _Pop Tarts?_

“But, Darcy,” Thor says, “A Pop Tart is a pastry. A sandwich must be savory and of a particular shape, as it shows here under ‘Structural Purist, Ingredient Neutral.’ ”

“HA!” Foster yells, “I told you! Thor understands the true definition of a sandwich.”

Lewis groans. She stands up and collects their plates, then starts clanging around at the stove. 

Under the noise, Foster murmurs to Thor in a voice that probably wouldn’t carry to anyone without enhanced hearing. “This is why you’re my soulmate.”

“I can think of many reasons, my love,” Thor murmurs back. He puts a hand on the back of her neck, thumb tracing a dark line on her collarbone that Bucky suddenly realizes is part of some kind of rune. Her soulmark, it must be, written in whatever language Thor speaks.

He looks away fast, and rubs a hand across his thigh where his own soulmark sits, as black and inexplicable as it was the day he broke conditioning. He doesn’t know when it appeared. Doesn’t know if Hydra saw it. Doesn’t know if he already …

His brain starts to spiral downward into the dark place full of all the things he doesn’t remember. The sharp click of a plate on the counter next to him drags him back. He startles a little, but only a little — a twitch of his fingers, the left ones whirring quietly. It takes a second before he can look up, but he does it in time to see Darcy backing away. She looks careful, like she’s trying not to disturb him, but not scared. When their eyes meet, she gives him a little wave and turns to the door. Foster and Thor, he realizes, are already gone.

He watches the sway of her hips until she’s out of sight, then looks down. The plate holds two golden-brown grilled cheese sandwiches, still steaming hot and gooey. When he bites into one, he tastes cheddar and garlic and soft, creamy avocado.

He’s thinking a June wedding.

***

He uses Google to find out what a Pop Tart is and asks JARVIS to order some. “If you know what flavor Darcy Lewis gets, order that one,” he adds, trying not to let the AI see him blush.

He’s still sleeping at odd hours, so it’s late at night when he props the box outside the door of the lab. It took him three tries to write the note on it. The first two times he tried to be charming and ended up somewhere on the other side of pushy. This one just says, in the neat capitals he’s working on turning into actual handwriting: THANKS FOR THE SANDWICH.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The one and only [Sandwich Alignment Chart.](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1249778-is-a-hot-dog-a-sandwich)
> 
> I myself am a Structural Neutral, Ingredient Purist, as I think we can all agree is right and proper.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our erstwhile, and extremely under-caffeinated, hero encounters more setbacks. Also more Pop Tarts. And an invasion of lizard men. It's a busy week.

Operation Talk to Darcy Lewis is going almost as badly as his last regular mission. It’s not that he never sees her, it’s that he can’t seem to catch her in daylight. The kitchen lunch is never repeated. He goes to the lab about six times as often as he usually does, which gets him laughed at by Tony, but apparently she and Jane don’t exactly keep a 9-to-5 schedule. He only sees her once, and even then it’s just the back of her head disappearing out the door.

On the bright side, his arm has never worked better. And some of those improvements Tony keeps muttering about actually don’t sound too bad.

The only time his path really crosses Darcy’s is once or twice a week when she comes into the kitchen to make coffee with the fancy coffee machine. Even that doesn’t seem to be on any kind of schedule except "early." So, okay. He can do early ... he won't _enjoy_ it, but he can do it.

The next week he gets up with Steve before dawn for four days in a row. By the time the sun comes up, he’s had so much coffee he can feel his hair growing. No sign of her. He spends the rest of the day sleep-deprived and snappish, growling at everyone. 

On Friday he gives up and stumbles in at his usual time — and there she is, wearing a big soft-looking sweater over a t-shirt with the word CRISPY on it. She holds out a cup of coffee to him without a word. He takes it and tries to thank her, but it comes out as a zombie-like groan. 

She pours two more mugs, picks them up in one hand, and pats him gently on the head with the other as she leaves.

He makes a vague sound of confusion, but she’s already gone, and Steve is laughing too hard to be any help. Later, he realizes it’s the first time he’s been touched by anyone other than a teammate or handler since 1943.

He tries again the next week, a couple of times, but it’s the same. There’s no predicting when she’ll be in, and he hates mornings too much to keep it up for long.

Steve’s always there for both the silent encounters and Bucky’s inevitable horror when he wakes up all the way. Like any true friend, he finds it all funny as hell. “If you just get up earlier …” he says, and laughs like a hyena as he dodges Bucky’s fist. “What?” he adds, mock-innocent, from the other side of the room. “I found Sam by getting up early. I’m just saying, early bird catches the ..” He trails off, but too late.

“Ha!” Bucky yanks out his phone. “I’m telling Sam you called his dick a worm,” he says, and then it’s his turn to dodge the fists of Righteous American Fury.

***

A month after the grilled cheese, he finally sees Darcy when he’s awake. That’s the good news. The bad news is, it’s because he’s running past her lab on the way to catch a ride downtown with Iron Man. AIM is doing something shady, as per fucking usual, and this time there appear to be lizard men on Park Avenue.

He’s still suiting up as he goes down the hall, buckling straps and checking the clips in his guns. He assembles his rifle on Stark’s lab table, swings it onto his shoulder, and looks up to see Darcy in the other lab, pressed against the glass. Her lips are parted a little and her eyes are wide. He’s not sure if that expression is fear or awe, but there’s no time to decide.

“Taking off in five,” Stark says, his voice recognizable even through the suit’s speakers. “Four …”

He threads his left arm through the handholds around Iron Man’s waist, reaches for his goggles, then looks up and pauses.

“Three …”

She’s still watching. Their eyes meet, and she gives him a little wave.

“Two …”

He winks at her and snaps the goggles on. Then, just for the hell of it, he aims two fingers at her like he did last time they were here. _Bang,_ he mouths.

“One.”

He thinks her mouth opens, but he can’t be sure. Stark takes off, and they’re gone through the roof hatch before she can reply.

***

They do pretty good that day, all things considered, though he does end up taking a lizard tail to the ribs. They’re fractured, not broken, but they hurt like a bitch. Steve makes him stop in Medical instead of flying home with Stark despite Bucky’s protests that _she might be waiting for me in the lab, Stevie, don’t be a jerk._

“Cockblock,” Tony supplies, flipping up the faceplate to grin at them. “The word is cockblock.”

“Not helping,” Steve says grimly, holding Bucky in a headlock they both know he could easily break if his ribs weren’t fractured. Which they are. So he can’t. Damn smartass punk.

He does try to go to the lab afterward, but she’s not there. It’s nuts, really, how sharp the pang of disappointment is. He doesn’t even know the girl, after all. It’s just that he’s been trying so hard to get to know her, for so long, and now he had this one chance and wasted it.

Damn AIM, anyway.

He growls into the silence of the empty lab and shuffles up to the kitchen. When he gets there, the first thing he sees is a plate of Pop Tarts sitting on the counter next to an ice pack and a bottle of Tylenol. There’s a square of bright blue paper stuck to the edge of the plate. Someone with loopy handwriting wrote **BUCKY** on it and underlined it twice. At the bottom in smaller letters, the same person added **Not for you, Clint.**

For a second, he just stares at it.

He doesn’t recognize the writing. Who’d do something like this for him of all people? Who even has the clearance to both a) know that he was hurt and b) come up here and make him a … he swallows hard, his throat suddenly tight … a care package?

Both questions are answered when he lifts up the plate. There’s another little blue square underneath. **BANG,** it reads.

He grins his way through all six of the too-sweet pastries. And if he keeps the notes, well, that’s nobody’s business but his.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Our Hero has a shocking realization, and the Falcon is right. (As usual.)

The next week, Sam comes back. He’s been gone a couple months, helping his nana down in Florida recover from a broken hip. (She’s 5 years younger than Steve, which Bucky finds hilarious.)

The first few days he’s back, of course, he and Steve disappear. Even Bucky doesn’t see much of them, which would normally bother him, but under the circumstances he’s grateful. Only so many times a guy can walk in on his best friend rounding third base in the living room (at 10 o’clock in the a.m., for god’s sake, Steve) before it becomes emotionally scarring. But the honeymoon doesn’t last forever, and eventually they all wind up in the kitchen together in the morning.

Sam, who knows Bucky well by now, talks quietly to Steve and doesn’t try to include him. Even un-caffeinated and half-human, it makes Bucky happy to watch them. Steve’s shoulders are more relaxed with his soulmate home, his smiles wider. Bucky likes Sam for who he is, but he loves him for how happy he makes Steve.

“I was thinking you and I and Bucky could go down to Florida for — oh, hello.” Sam’s voice changes and Bucky turns to follow his look at the door.

Sure enough, it’s Lewis, in another of those huge fuzzy sweaters she loves. She smiles at them all. Her lipstick is berry-colored today, and he’s going to have a lot of thoughts about it 1.5 cups of coffee from now. “Hel- _lo,”_ she says to Sam, cheerfully suggestive. “You new here?”

It’s been a while since Bucky wanted to kill Sam, but turns out he remembers the feeling pretty well. If he was awake, he’d cover it better. As it is, he feels himself glare. Steve coughs a little, unconvincingly, to hide a smirk. Sam’s eyebrows rise.

“I was just gonna ask you the same thing,” he says, and gives Lewis the kind of easy smile that Bucky can do, too, at any reasonable time of day. If only he ever saw her at those times. “Sam Wilson. The Falcon.” He leans across the table to extend his hand, and Bucky’s arm clicks a little, warningly. It’s a reflex, he can’t control it.

“Darcy Lewis. The Scientist Wrangler,” Lewis says, shaking his hand. She pulls back and goes around behind Bucky to the coffee maker. As usual now, she pats him absently on the way past — this time it happens to be on his metal shoulder. The plates whir happily as they register the pressure.

Sam’s eyebrows hit the roof. Steve coughs a little harder.

Lewis is measuring grounds, oblivious. “Damn, I’m getting way better at this whole meeting superheroes thing,” she says, her tone self-congratulatory. “I didn’t stutter or blush or anything. When I met these guys I was all like ‘meep!’ but now I’m, like, totally chill with the super-dudes. And dudettes, of course.”

Bucky blinks a couple of times. Somehow he forgot that she can talk the ear off a statue when she's talking to people other than, well, _him._ Most of the time he'd hate having to listen to a dame chattering at top speed this time of day, but ... it's nice when it's her. He likes the way her voice sounds, even if he can't find the words to respond.

Although he'd _really_ like to respond. Just one more cup to go. He glares into his mug, but it fails to magically refill itself.

“I can see that,” Sam says faintly. “Very chill. You, ah, you must hang out a lot with my boys here.”

“No, not really.” She leans back against the counter and crosses her arms, wrapping the sweater tight under her breasts. Bucky wishes fervently that he was in any state to appreciate that the way he should. “Just here, mostly. They make with the world-saving, I make with the coffee.” To punctuate the sentence, she pours a cup of coffee and switches it out with Bucky’s empty one.

Jesus, he loves her.

He takes a long drink from the mug and manages to find the presence of mind to aim a finger-gun at her with his free hand. His aim is perfect, even though his face is still buried in his mug, because he’s the Winter Soldier dammit.

Sam makes a choking noise, but it’s almost lost under Darcy’s peal of laughter. He lifts his eyes to watch: her head tipped back, eyes crinkled up, berry-colored mouth open. He liked seeing her laugh the first day, but it’s even better now when he can see _and_ hear it. 

It’s too early to grin the way he wants to, but he manages to get one corner of his own mouth up before she turns away to pour her usual two cups.

“As you can see, my relationship with Hot and Broody over there is based entirely on caffeine and finger guns,” she says to Sam, her voice still filled with laughter. She picks up the mugs in one hand and ruffles Bucky’s hair with the other one on the way out. At the door, she turns back and aims her own fingers at him with a grin. “Bang,” she says, and swans off.

Bucky’s heart stops. The icy flood of adrenaline brings up the Soldier, and his metal hand shatters the mug before he can get it back under control.

Well. He’s awake now.

“Buck?” Steve says. “Are you okay? Shit, I didn’t even think — she did that before and it didn’t seem to bother you.”

“It ain’t that,” Bucky says hoarsely. “I just — she’s my soulmate.”

_“What?”_ Steve says, at the same time that Sam says, “Well yeah, obviously.” Steve and Bucky turn to stare at him, and he holds up his hands. “Wait, is that news? You two haven't been dating the whole time I've been gone?"

"I -- you -- what?" Bucky feels coffee leaking through his left sock, but he can't seem to move. "Why did you think that?" 

Sam gives him an incredulous look. "She messed up your _hair_ , man. Last time I saw someone reach for your head without warning, you dislocated his elbow!"

Bucky bristles, because that's not untrue but it ain't exactly fair either. "Okay, first of all that was a long time ago and I'm doin' a lot better now," he snaps, "and second of all that guy was a douchebag who shouldn't have been touchin' me."

Sam spreads his hands as if to say, _See?_ "Uh-huh. And remind me, how long is the list of people who are allowed to touch you?"

He damn well knows how long it is -- or rather isn't. Hell, Bucky still flinches occasionally when _Steve_ tries to touch him. He can't argue, so instead he purses his lips in mutinous silence. The coffee around his feet is getting cold and his socks are probably a lost cause, but who cares?

Sam looks at him for a long time and then sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Are you seriously tellin' me you got to shoulder-patting and finger-guns stage with this girl and you didn't know she was your soulmate? Come on, JB, you're supposed to be the one with the social skills."

"Hey!" Bucky and Steve say together, which breaks the tension and makes Sam cackle.

“I guess it makes sense that you two never talked,” Steve says slowly. “She only comes here in the mornings, and the one time we — the music was too loud.” His face is a study in slowly dawning wonder, and Bucky drags his hands through his hair, knowing what’s coming. “Buck, is that — d-does your s-soulmark say ‘Bang’?” Steve does what any supportive lifelong friend would do and dissolves into helpless laughter.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Bucky says, resigned. “I shoulda known months ago, when that damn song started. But I always figured it’d be an enemy, you know? They’d say it and then shoot me, or maybe they already said it, and then I shot them.” It’s his turn to raise his hands defensively at Steve and Sam’s horrified faces. “What else was I s’posed to think? World’s most hated assassin and my soulmark just says ‘Bang.’ How could that story possibly end well?”

“You have a point,” Sam admits. “Question is, what are you going to do now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone who guessed that one of their soulmarks would be "Bang" was spot on! I had to do it, it practically wrote itself.
> 
> Anyone who guesses what Darcy's mark is going to say wins one shiny, imaginary internet dollar. (Hint: It's not "Bang.")


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy finally hears the words she's been waiting for all her life, and Bucky makes a disturbing confession.

What he does then is panic. It was hard enough to talk to her when he thought she was just a pretty — okay, gorgeous — okay, stunning — girl. Now that he knows the rest of his life is riding on this, he can’t imagine what he could possibly say.

He paces the living room of the quarters he shares with Steve and tries to figure it out. He goes through a whole pad of paper writing speeches, but nothing comes out right. He’s afraid if he doesn’t plan something, _anything,_ he’s going to say something dumb and generic like ‘Hi’ and she’ll never speak to him again just on principle. He wouldn't blame her.

Thankfully, they get the call to assemble before he can work himself up into a panic attack. It’s in Belgium, and he can’t ride the Stark Express that far, so he doesn’t see Darcy on the way out.

It’s just as well. He wants to see her, so much, but he also knows it would play hell with his mission focus to do that right now. And he needs his mission focus — needs it badly, because the mission goes to hell right away. There’s some kind of gas that’s toxic to Asgardians, so Thor goes down, and then Steve takes a bullet to the thigh that even he can’t shake off right away. Bucky ends up having to leave his sniper post and go hand-to-hand with a group of thugs that are trying to mob Natasha while Sam and Tony med-evac their two heavy hitters.

That’s all bad, but what _really_ pisses him off is getting shot in the back.

It’s the left side of his back, so the bullet pings off the plating of his shoulder and digs a mostly-harmless furrow through the scar tissue at the side of his neck. It hurts like a motherfucker, though, and that brings out the full weight of the Soldier. He turns, hears the servos in the arm spinning up to speed, and the next few minutes are a blur of shouting and red and the calm, familiar chant in his head: _Acquiring target— target lock — target eliminated._

When he comes back to himself, he’s got a shallow knife wound on his right forearm, bruising down his left ribs, and at least one fracture in his right hand. Twenty-two goons are down, the majority of them with non-lethal injuries, which makes him proud because he’s been working hard on that, okay.

The comms are going crazy. “Soldier — report!” Steve barks. “Are you injured?” Across the courtyard, Natasha winces and presses a hand to her ear. He mouths _Sorry_ and she makes a face at him.

“We’re okay, punk, put a sock in it,” he says, and Steve shuts up, thank God. “The bad news is, it has been zero days since my last murderous rampage.”

“I’ll reset the calendar,” Tony says. Bucky’s not sure if there’s an actual calendar, but it’s Stark, so maybe.

They regroup and head for the quinjet. It’s a quiet flight home — Thor’s got an oxygen tube stuck up his nose and the rest of them are nursing ice packs. Bucky swears a blue streak while Sam cleans out his shoulder. Steve does the same while getting a quick field dressing on his leg. Once he’s done with the doctoring, Sam holds Steve’s hand and glares into the middle distance like he always does when something knocks Steve down, even for a minute. Bucky takes Sam’s other hand, because yeah, he feels the same.

When they land, he’s not surprised to see Potts and Foster waiting on the landing pad. They usually listen in on the comms — Bucky used to do the same before he was cleared for missions — so they know when the team is coming in. What does surprise him is that Darcy’s there too, her eyes hollow and her usual bright lipstick gone. He sees why when she starts gnawing on her lip, craning her neck like she’s trying to see around Steve and Sam.

Then she catches sight of Bucky behind them and makes a sound like a sob. She runs at him, full tilt, and he opens his arms just in time for her to crash right into his chest. This should be weird, he thinks, but it’s not. This is exactly where she’s supposed to be, even if she doesn’t know why yet.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, oh my god you’re okay,” she’s babbling, and she pulls back to run her hands over his face, his arms, down his chest. “They said you got shot and I thought — I didn’t — you’re okay, right? I know this is weird, I’m sorry, it’s just I was so worried — I just needed to touch you — in a consensual way, I mean, not like a creepy — oh my god please make me stop talking.”

He grins, because that’s an open invitation if he ever heard one, and kisses her.

She stiffens for an instant, startled, then melts. The world dissolves. There’s nothing but Darcy: her tongue in his mouth, his hands in her hair, her arms wrapping around his neck to press against his bullet wound —

He pulls back at that last one, hissing with pain. She blinks, then sees where her arm is and yanks it away.

“Well, that escalated quickly,” she says. He’s not sure if that’s a good thing, but then she looks up through her lashes and he can see that her eyes are dilated and her cheeks are flushed. He feels the grin spreading across his face. She blushes harder and pokes him in the chest. “Um, look, I know you’re the strong silent type, but could you say something? Anything?”

This is it. This is the moment. He’s got to say something sweet, something romantic, something this beautiful woman deserves to have on her for life. “Doll,” he says, looking deep into her eyes, “I hate to break it to you, but a Pop Tart is actually a calzone.”

Her mouth drops open.

He slaps a hand over his own mouth, but too late.

“It’s you,” she says faintly. Her eyes widen, her lips part … and then he has to catch her, because she’s laughing too hard to stand up.

“I can’t believe I said that,” he says blankly, cradling her while she cackles into his chest. “Coulda made any romantic speech in the goddamn world, and I fuckin’ come out with _Pop Tarts?”_

She straightens up enough to look at him. “You beautiful bastard,” she says, still breathless and grinning. “That was the best soul mark ever. You know how cool it is to be the kid in school who gets unlimited Pop Tarts? Plus I introduced them to Asgard and now they call me the Goddess of Toaster Pastry. And _Jane,”_ she raises her voice slightly, “owes me fifty bucks.”

“God _damn_ it!” Foster yells from across the landing pad. He remembers that the others exist and risks a look at them. They look bemused, except for Steve and Sam, who are laughing almost as hard as Darcy. Jerks.

Darcy waves a weak hand at her friend. “I told you … the chart … would work,” she manages, before cracking up again.

Bucky’s pop always said that if you could make a girl laugh, you were halfway to making time with her. (And then his ma always swatted him with her apron, but she was laughing when she did it, so that kinda proved the point.) _Fuck it,_ he thinks, and goes with it. He makes his face solemn and tugs her up until they’re eye to eye again. “Sweetheart, before we go any further, I have a confession to make.”

She looks up, laughter dying and a concerned frown starting on her face. 

“I’m actually structural neutral, ingredient purist. I … I don’t believe a hot dog is a sandwich.” She lets out a breath, and he shoots her a wink that makes her mouth twitch up again. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I’ll try,” she agrees, matching his serious tone. “If you can forgive me for not actually liking coffee.”

It’s his turn to blink. “I … you … what?”

She looks down, her face flushing, and toys with one of the straps on his uniform. “I can’t stand coffee. But you were always in the kitchen drinking it, and I couldn’t find you anyplace else. I thought it would look weird if I was just hanging out for no reason, so …”

He traps her hand with his and ducks his chin to try to catch her eye. “Let me get this straight. You’ve been makin’ a drink you hate multiple times a week just so you could have an excuse to see me?”

“Hell yes.” She shoots him a look up through her lashes that makes his mouth go dry. “I don’t know if you know this, but you’re stupid hot. Also, I mostly didn’t drink it. I poured it into Jane’s houseplants.”

Foster makes an outraged squawking noise. “Is that why my African violet died?”

“Don’t kid yourself, Janey, it was on its last legs,” Darcy calls back without looking away from Bucky. Her eyes are soft, and she’s so beautiful it makes his chest hurt.

“I spent so much time in the lab trying to find you,” he murmurs, leaning down towards her lips.

“I wasted so much of Tony’s coffee,” she whispers back.

Their mouths are almost touching. He can’t wait to taste her again. “I’m never gonna be a morning person. And I don’t really like Pop Tarts.”

“That’s okay,” she says, for his ears alone. “I know how to wake you up. Why don’t you get that shoulder patched up and then maybe you and I can figure out some things we _both_ like?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he breathes, and kisses her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the man once said, "You didn't see that coming?"
> 
> Not gonna lie, I totally didn't either. It's my favorite line I've ever written, I still laugh like a loon Every. Time.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed it too! Thanks for guessing, and as always, thank you for reading! It's a joy to share these two dorks with you.


End file.
